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If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
You can’t build relationships by being plastic. Politicians might win elections doing that sort of thing—but if it’s a flesh and blood relationship you envision, you have to show a little skin. As Jesus-followers, if we don’t get to know one another—how do we ever expect to share with, comfort, encourage and challenge one another? The kind of community we learn of within the context of the early church wasn’t the brand that happens by chance.
It entails being vulnerable.
I do recognize that some of our hesitation to get to know one another is just due to good old personality conflicts, time restraints, and so forth. But fear of rejection and fear of getting burned are stubborn foes and I’d say these fears play the lead role in why we fail to open up about what bothers us terribly, what makes our heart skip a beat, what we are really thinking—or what’s actually going on.
So let’s do it—full of belief, confident that we’re presentable inside and out. Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:22-25, The Message Bible)
The beneifts of fellowship with one another far outweigh any negatives we may encounter.
Because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients. We thank God for what He has done for us. We thank God for giving us brethren who live by His call, by His forgiveness, and His promise. We do not complain of what God does not give us; we rather thank God for what He does give us daily.
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life together
We all have been there—so consumed with someone else and their life—we made our self utterly miserable. Why is it that we think so and so is better off than us for such and such reason or that everyone else has been given gifts and talents that are superior to ours? One day we feel as though we are on the cusp of living the life we believe God has destined we participate in—the next we wish we were in someone elses’ shoes.
Jesus tells Peter to care for his brothers and sisters after asking him several times if he loved him (the two happen to be in direct correlation with one another)—and concludes by indicating what kind of death Peter would suffer and by simply saying Follow me. I’m thinking Peter got agitated by the exchange because moments later he’s thinking about John.
Turning his head, Peter noticed the disciple Jesus loved following right behind. When Peter noticed him, he asked Jesus, “Master, what’s going to happen to him?”
Jesus said, “If I want him to live until I come again, what’s that to you? You—follow me.” That is how the rumor got out among the brothers that this disciple wouldn’t die. But that is not what Jesus said. He simply said, “If I want him to live until I come again, what’s that to you?” (John 21:20-23, The Message Bible)
It’s not for us to concern ourselves with what Jesus will do with our brother and sisters. Frankly speaking, it’s none of our business—our concern is to give ourselves to that which Jesus plans to do with us.
All saints, that are united to Jesus Christ their Head, by his Spirit, and by faith, have fellowship with him in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory: and, being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other’s gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man.
-Westminster Confession, XXVI:1
It’s no secret that today scores of lives and relationships are at the breaking point. As followers of Jesus, we need to do better than refusing to be square with one another.
Like Doc Holliday (who I mentioned in the last post), it can take a life altering or ending event to shake us free. Being able to level with one another starts with being honest with God and ourselves—once we do that—we can begin to walk in community with one another. Wikipedia states, ‘Koinonia’ is the anglicisation of a Greek word (κοινωνία) that means communion by intimate participation. It’s basically where our word fellowship comes from (so no, the word fellowship isn’t some cheesy word your pastor thought up in describing mid-week meeting just to be weird). The idea comes straight from the Bible itself, and we see it lived out beautifully in the early church. But not without the participants being willing to bare their souls and share their sufferings, burdens, losses and their joys—one with another. The book of Acts records that they came together daily—in other words—they very regularly participated in the lives of one another.
How about us?
I have a brother and a sister of my own who both have families of their own. However, a part of having a healthy and rewarding relationship with either of them is by the grace of God—and somehow attempting to participate in their lives.
And it requires intention and sacrifice.
42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47, ESV)
What are you a part of that’s more important?
When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles. When he stops studying the Bible, the devil laughs. When he stops praying, the devil shouts for joy.
My favorite movie (Tombstone) winds up with Wyatt Erp visiting his friend Doc Holliday on his deathbed at a sanatorium—he is dying from tuberculosis. Wyatt, not having enough friends to need more than one hand less four fingers to count them on, comes to visit Doc every day and try his luck in a few hands of poker—despite Doc’s displeasure with the visits. The afternoon Doc is going to die, Wyatt walks up to his bedside—in a style only Wyatt could—and asks, How are you feeling today Doc? To which Doc candidly replies, I’m dying, how are you?
And that’s what it takes for some of us to level with one another when we should have much sooner.
Why are we so phony with one another? We are asked on a day that we feel like crawling in a hole, How you doing today? And what’s our answer? Great, never been better. Even Joel Osteen has a bad hair day. How many couples spend a lifetime together and never take the time to stop and really learn about one another? I’ve had bosses who after months of working for them say to me—I didn’t know you had any kids? And I want to ask them—Do you think I would work this second-rate job if I didn’t?
Don’t lie to one another. You’re done with that old life. It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.
…Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. (Colossians 3:9-11, 15, The Message Bible)
It’s okay to say—I’m hurting, would you pray for me? Which reminds me, it’s even better to say—I can see your dying, what can I do for you?
Often we remain silent when we need to speak. Without words, it is hard to love well. When we say to our parents, children, lovers, or friends: “I love you very much” or “I care for you” or “I think of you often” or “You are my greatest gift,” we choose to give life.
It is not always easy to express our love directly in words. But whenever we do, we discover we have offered a blessing that will be long remembered. When a son can say to his father, “Dad, I love you,” and when a mother can say to her daughter, “Child, I love you,” a whole new blessed place can be opened up, a space where it is good to dwell. Indeed, words have the power to create life.
-Henri Nouwen
I remember it vividly, as if it were this morning. I was staying with my parents. A grown man with children of my own, feeling like the biggest loser in the world. I had not been divorced all that long and to make matters worse the divorce had been the consequence of a series of bad bad choices on my end years earlier. And to top it off, months after the spectacle I had went out and messed up my life even more. I felt like my insides were being torn out to be frank.
One morning as I was laying in bed, home from my job (which required traveling)—But he knew I was dying inside and it was killing him. I began to cry and I couldn’t stop. Silence and sobs. And out of nowhere my dad said seven words: You are a man of God, Ken. He didn’t need to say anything else, it didn’t matter to me what I felt like or the fool I had made of myself, I was still God’s man.
So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it. (Colossians 3:12-14, The Message Bible)
Thank God he’s a Father who has chosen to love me and pick me up when I can’t even lift my chin.
It is not experience of life but experience of the Cross that makes one a worthy hearer of confessions. The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of men. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother, I can dare to be a sinner.
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
In business and sports—not to mention other arenas I may be skipping over—it’s not a sin to admit and face your failures. No, rather the transgression is in avoiding and skirting around it when it’s the elephant in the room no one wants to address. A small oversight can be the beginning of the end for a prospering business or a successful sports franchise. Like cancer unchecked—so is our refusal to deal with the reality of a world gone bad that we just happen to live in. You’d think by the way some of us act that to get touched by it’s consequences (hard as we try to avoid it)—is some sort of huge sin. And the way we avoid one another when we are drowning only confirms the suspicion—when we do come around, we have the perfect advice.
Job’s friends thought so. And to top it off his own wife lost her mind before they even got started on him.
Satan left God and struck Job with terrible sores. Job was ulcers and scabs from head to foot. They itched and oozed so badly that he took a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself, then went and sat on a trash heap, among the ashes.
His wife said, “Still holding on to your precious integrity, are you? Curse God and be done with it!”
He told her, ‘You’re talking like an empty-headed fool. We take the good days from God—why not also the bad days?’
Not once through all this did Job sin. He said nothing against God. (Job 2:7-10, The Message Bible)
You may whip the world, but you are bound to have people in your life who need you when they are on the other side of the whip—who aren’t as lucky—but instead find themselves the whipped (and I know some of us think it’s our right living that’s got us sitting pretty and if everyone else would just live like us they’d be honky-dory too).
There are those (and could just as easily be you or me) in our lives who desperately need the touch of someone who can be broken with them.
Will you be too together to stoop down and help your fallen brother when he needs it most?
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